Top 10 US Biomedical Research Institutions Involved in Drug Development

By BiotechDaily International staff writersPosted on 23 Feb 2014

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As Big Pharma companies are increasingly slashing their R&D spending, academic research institutions must play a key role in the drug development process, particularly on the preclinical research and drug discovery side.

Whereas many of the research institutions are still doing ample fundamental science research, interest seems to be growing among the universities in repurposing existing drugs or those that never made it into the marketplace because of safety problems, according to recent market research.

FierceBiotech (Washington DC, USA), an online drug development industry publication that monitors biopharmaceutical deals, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and clinical trials, recently reviewed some of the best research institutions in the United States and ranked by them by their level of funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD, USA), the largest funder of biomedical research worldwide.

In 2013, funding for biomedical research at these institutions took a hit from sequestration on top of years of budget slashes to the NIH. Out of 10, 7 of those on the list (shown below) lost funding in US fiscal 2013 compared to the same period in 2012. Stanford University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of California, San Francisco, were the only 3 among the top 10 to receive a slight cash influx in NIH funding from 2012 to 2013. A 2014 spending bill passed in January 2014 will restore USD 1 billion to NIH compared to fiscal year 2013 postsequester, but that is still below presequester funding levels.

The top ten instituitions: 1. Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD); 2. University of California, San Francisco; 3. University of Washington (Seattle, WA, USA); 4. University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia); 5. University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); 6. University of Pittsburgh (PA); 7. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; 8. University of California, San Diego; 9. Stanford University (Stanford, CA), and 10. Duke University (Durham, NC).